Songoftheday 7/19/23 -American girls and American guys, we'll always stand up and salute we'll always recognize...

 

 

"Courtesy Of The Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" - Toby Keith

from the album Unleashed (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from country music star Toby Keith, who by the start of the millennium, had positioned himself as one of the top acts in the genre. His sixth solo album, Pull My Chain, capitalized on his goofy self-defacing persona and scored a trio of #1 country radio hits that crossed over to Billboard magazine's Hot 100 top-40 with "I'm Just Talkin' About Tonight", "I Wanna Talk About Me", and "My List".  That last song peaked in May of 2002, and by the end of the month, Toby was back with a new single from what would be his next album, Unleashed. "Courtesy Of The Red, White, And Blue", subtitled "The Angry American", was written by Keith alone, and produced by James Stroud. Whereas other post 9/11 successes like Alan Jackson's poignant "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning" eloquently grieved the moment, and old relics like Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" at least brought some sense of internal pride, Toby's was the product of anger and revenge. The "war or terror" that had us pummeling the country of Afghanistan (whilst the presumed funders of the operation in Saudi Arabia went scot-free) fueled lines like "Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye, man we lit up your world like the fourth of July" delivered as if it were a convoluted version of "American Pie". I mean, the whole piece is a dick-waving schlockpiece made for those who never served a day in their lives, but in those days where it was considered traitorous to consider the intentions (including the diversion of this "war" to Iraq) it found its audience. It's not the worst of the bunch (that will come soon) but it's quite near the bottom, and it ended up pigeonholing Keith's career from the affable cowboy to the "patriot" crowd that still waves the confederate flag. But for awhile, the marketing plan worked...

 "Courtesy Of The Red, White and Blue" put Toby back into the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in August of 2002, while spending a week at #1 on their Country Songs radio chart. The Unleashed album, released in August as the single was cresting, topped the Billboard 200 sales tally for a week, spending two years on the chart, while taking seven weeks at #1 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over four million copies. 

Both Toby and the Unleased album will return to the series.

(1/10)

Up tomorrow: Country crossover giants have a daily recurrence.